Lesson 1
This Week’s New Words:
ciao - hello, goodbye (familiar)
salve - hello
addio - goodbye
bene - well
egli - he (literary)
lui - he (common speech), him
ella - she (literary)
lei - she (common speech), her
esso - it (masculine)
essa - it (feminine)
essi - they (persons or things)
loro - them (persons or things), they (common speech, persons)
grazie - thank you
spiacente - I’m sorry
noi - us, we (plural)
signore - sir, mister, mr.
signora - madame, mrs.
signorina - miss
tu - you (informal)
voi - you (plural, formal and informal)
io - I
Numbers 1-10
0 zero
1 uno
2 due
3 tre
4 quattro
5 cinque
6 sei
7 sette
8 otto
9 nove
10 dieci
Pronunciation
The Italian alphabet is fairly similar to our own (English, or depending on where you’re from, American). The letters K,J,W,X,Y occur only in foreign origin words. Each lesson will explain a few more letters. This week, I’ll explain the interesting letters (or combinations thereof) from this week’s words (above).
gli
The gli (followed or not by another vowel) in Italian is pronounced more or less as ll in Spanish
However there are words like glicine (flower name), negligente, anglicano in which, for etymological reasons, g and l are pronounced as two separate sounds as in English.
Thus, the Italian word coniglio (rabbit) is pronounced like conihlyo. and the word conigli (rabbits) is pronounced like conihli.
gn
The gn is the same sound as Spanish ? i.e. is the same sound as the ny pair in the word canyon.
Thus, signore is pronounced like sin-yore.
h
The Italian h is always silent and as such an Italian speaker won’t pronounce it when it occurs in foreign origin words (e.g. hotel). Moreover the letter h in Italian occurs only in the groups ch and gh (see below) and in the present tense of the verb to have. Thus, ho ( [I] have ) is pronounced o and hanno ( [they] have) is pronounced anno, the same as the word anno (year).
a, e, i, o, u
The Italian vowels have only one sound, regardless of what letters they precede or follow, or accent marks on the vowel, with the (minor) exception of e and o.
a
The a is always pronounced as in the English word car.
e
The e has the sound of the e in bed. Actually there are two sounds of e :
an OPEN one, indicated with the grave accent : è  a CLOSED one, indicated with the acute accent : é Note however that such accents are NOT normally written (unless they are required for tonic reasons), and appear only in dictionaries. Moreover, dictionaries report an ideal Tuscan pronunciation which is subject to ample regional variations. For instance the words perché (why) and stélla (star) are usually pronounced in the North as perchè and stèlla. In general a mispronunciation at this level won’t be noticed, or if it is noticed (for instance méla (apple) is pronounced everywhere like that, and if you pronounce mèla it will sound funny) you will be understood. There are words in which a difference in accent causes a different meaning, as in pèsca (peach) and pésca (fishing), but in the North we pronounce both words as the first one and are understood everywhere.
A note on accents : dictionaries indicate the tonic accent, i.e. put an accent on the vowel in the stressed syllable in the word (this is in the vast majority of cases the last but one, so called plain or flat words). This accent is not used and not required in normal writing. In normal writing the accent is required ONLY if the word ENDS with an accented vowel (i.e. the last syllable is accented, so called truncated words), e.g. perché. In handwriting do not bother to use the acute or the grave accent, just put any little sign over the vowel. On typewriters with Italian keyboards there are accented keys. On computer keyboards we usually prefer to use ASCII keyboards without accented keys, and just use an apostrophe instead of the accent, e.g. perche’ : it is simpler and more portable.